Naga, EU-Switzerland launch P10-M migration, dev’t project

NAGA CITY—A P10-million project aimed at providing services to overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) and their families in Bicol has been launched with the signing on Tuesday of a grant agreement between the city government of Naga and the European Union/Swiss government.

Swiss Ambassador Ivo Sieber, United Nations Development Program (UNDP) Country Director Maurice Dewulf and Naga Mayor John G. Bongat signed the agreement on the Joint Migration and Development Initiative (JMDI) with Secretary Imelda Nicolas, chair of Commission on Filipino Overseas, acting as witnesses.

The $230,000 (P10.12 million) fund for JMDI was granted by the EU and the Swiss Agency for Development Cooperation, which the UNDP implements and administers.

The fund would be used to, among others, set up a one-stop-shop center where OFWs and their families could access multiple services such as advice on investment, housing and real estate, and visas and passports, said city planning and development officer Wilfredo Prilles.

Bongat thanked the EU and Swiss government for the project that he said would raise awareness of local government units (LGUs) in Bicol on the issues involving migrant Filipinos and of the programs or projects that these LGUs could integrate in their development plans to address the needs of OFWs and their families in their localities.

Nicolas explained that JMDI’s goal was to strengthen and empower the Filipino communities overseas and the families they have left behind. “It is also meant to strengthen the ties between them and [their] Motherland,” she added.

Nicolas said that of the 10.5 million overseas Filipinos all over the world in more than 200 countries and territories, 47 percent are permanent migrants, 40 percent are temporary migrants (OFWs) and 13 percent are in transit.

The Naga City technical working group estimated there are 103,000 permanent and temporary Bicolano migrants, representing around 5 percent of the Philippine migrant population, said Prilles.

Nicolas stressed the importance of OFWs in the Philippines, noting that the total remittances of OFWs in 2013 reached $24 billion, which is more than the annual official development assistance and foreign direct investments into the Philippines.

She said the JMDI implemented in Naga City was the phase 2 project, with the first phase implemented in 2008-2012 involving nongovernment organizations.

She said the phase 2 of JMDI was to highlight the central role that local authorities play in migration development initiatives, since they are closer to the ground and able to understand and address the real situation of migrants, their families and the community.

The local authorities could also be given the needed technical assistance to create the profiles of migrants from their localities to enable them to best respond to their needs.

Ambassador Guy Ledoux, head of delegation of EU to the Philippines, in a message read by Golda Roma, UNDP program officer, said there are about 900,000 overseas Filipinos in EU member countries, mostly in France, Italy, Spain and United Kingdom.

He said that although the Philippines has one of the largest institutional systems and migration laws in place to manage these migration flows, it is necessary to continue developing comprehensive support mechanism that would provide for effective high-quality services to migrants.